Redefining Realness by Janet Mock Read Free Book Online Page B

client, or types letters for him,” I said. “So if you’re going to be a doctor or lawyer, you’re going to need a secretary.”
    “Very good,” she said. “Everybody give Charles a hand.”
    As everyone applauded, I knew I was a hit. This was what made me love school: recognition. If you did well, if you excelled, then the system rewarded you, and I liked being rewarded.
    That day I went home with a note for Dad. I jumped from my seat at the kitchen table when I heard him at the front door. When he came in wearing his blue uniform with his cap in hand, I handed him the note, which I was sure praised me. But Dad’s face curdled, as if Ms. Johnson’s note were sour. It was an exasperated look I had seen before. It mirrored Grandma Pearl’s expression after seeing me prancing around in that fuchsia muumuu a few years earlier.
    “You want to be a secretary, is that right?” Dad said, tiredly unbuttoning the top of his starched shirt.
    I knew from his tone that the right answer was no. I didn’t want to lie, so I remained silent as he lectured me not in long division or vocabulary but about what boys do in the world versus what girls do, how boys run and girls skip, how I was everything I shouldn’t be. My father’s rebukes were meant to be preventative, to stop whatever seed was growing inside of me. He looked at me quizzically, as if for the first time, because of a note from a stranger, what he had seen in me was now real. Someone else had seen it, it went beyond our own home, and he needed to stop it. I knew he wanted me to straighten my limp wrists and stiffen my hips as I walked, and lower the registerof my playground wailing. Self-consciousness and shame about being different blossomed, and I learned to be more careful, more practiced, more aware.
    I’ve heard parents say all they want is “the best” for their children, but the best is subjective and anchored by how they know and learned the world. The expectations my father had of me had nothing to do with me and all to do with how he understood masculinity, what it meant to be a man, a strong black man. My father welcomed two sons into the world, and one was feminine and needed fixing. Using my childlike lens, I felt Dad was against me, consistently monitoring me and policing my gender. I’ve come to realize that he simply loved me and wanted to protect me, even from myself. He was grappling with fears that involved my safety and how my outward femininity would make me a target of bullying, teasing, and other dangers that he felt lay ahead. My adult understanding of my childhood with my father doesn’t erase the effects of his policing. I felt his gaze always following me, making me feel isolated as I quietly grappled with my identity. The loneliness and self-consciousness from these exchanges made me vulnerable in a way I wasn’t able to recognize until decades later. This recognition cast a new light on one pivotal evening with Derek.
    I don’t remember where Dad went or why Chad wasn’t playing Super Mario Bros. on the carpet in front of the living room television. It was just the two of us: Derek lay back on the brown microsuede recliner, and I sprawled out on the matching couch. We sat in silence for about an hour, watching TV, before he interrupted the programming. “This is boring, huh?” he asked.
    “I guess,” I said, watching him pull the lever on the chair to lift himself up.
    “Let me show you something,” he said, grabbing my ankles. His touch felt foreign. I was irritated because I did not want to engagein any kind of roughhousing. I had seen him wrestle with Chad, and they’d be on the ground in a human pretzel for what felt like an eternity before Chad would bow out.
    He pulled me off the couch by my ankles and I said “Ouch” as my butt hit the carpet. I’d found that the more I complained about physical activity, the less energy I had to exert.
    “Awww, did I hurt you?” he asked with a sweetness in his voice that